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The story of Steven Seagal accompanying Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s raid on an Arizona man suspected of cock-fighting seems almost humorous. Almost, that is, until you think about police driving into your own home with a tank and killing your dog, which is what happened when Seagal drove a tank into Jesus Llovera’s house.

Seagal told a local radio station that animal cruelty was one of his pet peeves, and since the bust was an animal cruelty bust – which apparently requires the use of several armored cars, a tank, and dozens of sheriff’s deputies in full riot gear – Seagal decided to go along for the ride…and kill hundreds of roosters and a puppy in the process.

So much for animal cruelty. It turns out, of course, that Seagal was just joining the ranks of reality TV stars, blending the line between reality and television, and the line between entertainment and justice. And now he’s being sued to the tune of $100,000 by Llovera, who is also demanding a written apology from Seagal to his children for killing their puppy.

As Sean O’Neal points out, “Here’s hoping that Steven Seagal, puppy-killer, never meets Steven Seagal, guy from Out For Justice, because that dude would be pissed.” Now that would be poetic justice, which is more than we can say for the faux justice Arpaio and Seagal handed out for the TV cameras.

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It used to be that if the police wanted to come into your house, they would knock first and then show you a search warrant.

Then, Nixon decided that we needed a drug war to keep the liberal hippies down. The fact that the country was born and went 150 years with all drugs legal meant nothing.

Then came the drug war no nock raids. Now, it has become standard for paramilitary law enforcement to break in , throw everyone down and maybe throw the warrant, based on lies from a paid informant, in the faces of the homeowner – assuming the surprised homeowner is not shot in the process. Also, they frequently kill the dogs, even the harmless ones.

I’m not sure who is sanctioning gangs in this article. Unless, of course, you chose not to actually read the article which is entirely likely.

The fact is, however, that we are all presumed innocent until proven guilty. Even if Llovera is guilty of cock-fighting, that in no way justifies smashing his home in and killing his dog. I’m much more afraid of people who would replace our system of justice with fascism than I am with a guy running a cock-fighting outfit.

Point of note. Here in Maricopa County we have chaged a number of laws only to have Arpaio ignore those changes. There are hundreds of lawsuits against him and the MCOS (dozens with some merit) to ask the courts to order him to obey the law. There are 2 Federal Investigations ongoing into his operations (1 with merit). There is at least 1 sitting grand jury looking into his behavior and into the behavior of these LEO’s. A Phoenix Police sargent I am acquainted with (we both regularly go to the same bbq’s) has nothing but scorn and derision for most of Joe’s Goons saying things like “They couldn’t get jobs in law enforcement so they work for the MCOS (maricopa county sheriffs office)” As for doing their jobs? The MCOS has 10,000′s of unserved criminal warrants many for violent crimes. It is their job toserve these warrants. No effort whatso ever is being made to serve them. More than a third of these criminals make no effort to hide. Many are listed in the phone book and are at the publically listed address, but Joe can’t find the budget to go arrest them. One local reporter with a list of wanted suspects and a phone book something like a dozen living in listed addresses in just a couple hours. Doing their jobs? Busting a bunch of illegals who pick our crops and grout our bathrooms who happen to like to watch roosters kill each other (barbaric but what do you expect my irish ancestors had unsavory habits at first as well)-this is secondary to arresting rapists, violent criminals and others who are either accused of or have been convicted of serious violent crimes! Stick that in your pipe and smoke it dolphie.

The article actually describes cockfighting, not narcotics, but I agree with you in principle. We shouldn’t have to design our homes like bunkers with tank traps around them for fear of government agents making an armed, mechanized assault in the pretense of “serving a warrant”.